'Why We Did It' The Iraq War

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Seems the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

John

Thanks Dude!

My oldest boy is a Green Beret.

Chip off the old block.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Dang Tom, you're playing land mine these days.

Anybody touches you, you go off.

If you wanna make an omelette, ya gotta break some eggs.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by Boreas

How on earth is this talking down to you?

I ain't gonna explain nothing to you so don't bother asking.

Explaining is what losers do.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

If you wanna make an omelette, ya gotta break some eggs.

Sure, but you also have to stop breaking eggs, and then do stuff with them.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

If you wanna make an omelette, ya gotta break some eggs.

Yeh, good luck with that.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Sure, but you also have to stop breaking eggs, and then do stuff with them.

I go through phases.

Lately, I've been in a piss up a rope mood.

[donquixote99]

Check.

Try pissing down a rope. Make gravity your friend.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Check.

Try pissing down a rope. Make gravity your friend.

I'll take it under advisement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-OoIvgtuzs

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-OoIvgtuzs

Actually, that's not such a bad philosophy, as philosophies go....

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

While I admire the sensitivity and tone and learned eloquence on display here, I fear you nonetheless sort of lost me at the first sentence. The why of the thing doesn't seem to me to present philosophical conundrums, and truly had nothing whatsoever to do with WMD. Some neocons heard we'd become the world's hyperpower, and thought if we just made an example of someone, everyone would start doing what we told them to.

It was one of the worst ideas since Athens invaded Sicily.

Getting back on topic, my theory if anyone cares to hear it is that Saddam Hussein was a gift from heaven to foreign policy hawks like the Neocons, who'd just publicly put the Middle East on notice with their Project for the New American Century. Not smart as it turned out as they do occasionally check the 'net over there.
Our position in Saudi as a base of operations had become politically untenable and we had to eventually un-ass the AO (leave) to keep the peace and good relations. The Iraqi situation presented the Hawks and oil/financial interests with a golden opportunity to keep boots in Middle East sand by occupying Iraq with some ruse of justification, and as a major bonus, we take over the oil fields to "stabilize them" and keep the stuff flowing out, and guess what? That pays the costs of all this at-home spending. The Iraqis (aren't they all the same?) are so grateful to be out from under the Hussein family's tyranny they hail us as liberating heroes. Win-win!! Except the "little people" in the margins of this equation failed to be predictably compliant to the oh-so-clever and well-conceived plan. Who-da thunk?? It blows up in our face as a major poorly thought-thru clusterfunk that persists to the present, they're glad to see Hussein gone but miss the enforced stability his tyranny ensured. The ongoing intermittent terror attacks and our indebtedness to the operation and ongoing indebtedness to the injured/disabled vets of this operation is the legacy, not to mention our loss of credibility thru the expenditure of good will squandered. The diversion of resources from Afghanistan proved disastrous. Nobody won-won.